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Almanacis a collection of lyrical and narrative poems that celebrate, and mourn the passing of, the world of the small family farm. But while the poems are all involved in some way with the rural Midwest, particularly with the people and land of the northwestern Illinois dairy farm where Austin Smith was born and raised, they are anything but merely regional. As the poems reflect on farm life, they open out to speak about childhood and death, the loss of tradition, the destruction of the natural world, and the severing of connections between people and the land. This collection also reflects on a long poetic apprenticeship. Smith's father is a poet himself, andAlmanacis in part a meditation about the responsibility of the poet, especially the young poet, when it falls to him to speak for what is vanishing. To quote another Illinois poet, Thomas James, Smith has attempted in this book to write poems \"clear as the glass of wine / on [his] father's table every Christmas Eve.\" By turns exhilarating and disquieting, this is a remarkable debut from a distinctive new voice in American poetry.______ FromAlmanac:THE MUMMY IN THE FREEPORT ART MUSEUMAustin Smith Amongst the masterpieces of the small-townPicassos and Van Goghs and photographsof the rural poor and busts of dead Greeksor the molds of busts donated by the ArtInstitute of Chicago to this dyingtown's little museum, there was a mummy,a real mummy, laid out in a dim-litroom by himself. I used to goto the museum just to visit him, a pharaohwho, expecting an afterlifeof beautiful virgins and infinite foodand all the riches and jewelshe'd enjoyed in earthly life,must have wondered how the hellhe'd ended up in Freeport, Illinois.And I used to go alone into that roomand stand beside his sarcophagus and say,\"My friend, I've asked myself the same thing.\"

A short story is presented.

Author [Pam Houston] will sign her novel \"Sight Hound\" starting at 7 p.m. today at Bookworks in the North Valley. There will be an unveiling of two new creations, one by Finnish choreographer Jorma Elo and another by Edwaard Liang. \"Sweet Fields\" by Twyla Tharp also will be performed.

There will be an unveiling of two new creations, one by Finnish choreographer Jorma Elo and another by Edwaard Liang. \"Sweet Fields\" by Twyla Tharp also will be performed. In \"Sight Hound,\" Houston depicts the life of a Colorado playwright through the eyes of her three-legged Irish Wolfhound, Dante. [Pam Houston] lives near Durango, Colo.

Not too far beneath the story of Rae and her beloved dog Dante is a cathartic retelling of [Pam Houston]'s own life, her fears and a priceless relationship with a dying Irish wolfhound. \"That's Pam for you,\" says Sharon Oard Warner, head of the creative writing program at the University of New Mexico and a friend of Houston's. \"That tone that people find so endearing and enjoyable in her writing is Pam. You can't separate the two. That's what you get when you meet her.\" to her readers -- including those who will gather at Bookworks on Thursday to listen to Houston discuss her new book -- there's one constant dog in her life, and that's Dante. He's a character Houston has used in previous writings and is the lead voice in \"Sight Hound,\" a story told through a chorus of 12 characters.